170 SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 



formity of language, their immutability in an 

 original direction of heart and mind. He, like 

 many other philosophers, became convinced of 

 the oneness of human kind. The various lan- 

 guages he considered the intellectual creation 

 of mankind,* which, in their development, in- 

 timately intertwined, manifest a national form, 

 and become hence of considerable importance 

 in the recognition of the similarity and the 

 diversity of the various races of mankind, t 

 But here he recognised likewise the limits of 

 his physical picture of nature, which he will not 

 overstep. 



Professor Max Miiller, in his lectures on the 

 science of language second series intro- 

 ductory lecture, pp. 7-8, said : " The whole 

 natural creation tends towards man; without 



* It was a profound saying of "Wilhelm von Humboldt, 

 " that man is man only by means of speech, but in order to 

 invent speech he must be already man." 



t " Some believe that there are 4,000 living languages, 

 others that there are 6,000. The mode of denning them is 

 clearly a mere matter of opinion. Strabo tells us that in his 

 time, in the Caucasus alone a chain of mountains not 

 longer than the Alps, and much narrower there were at 

 least seventy languages. In South America and Mexico, 

 Alexander von Humholdt reckoned the distinct tongues by 

 hundreds." (See " Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of 

 Man? ly Sir Charles Lyett, Bart., F.R.S., pp. 458460, 

 and 461.) 



